So where's the internet?

[Destiny]

How is it that within minutes of the zombie outbreak, the internet/phone/TV/radio/electricity/water/etc. went down? It doesn't make any sense for them all to go down so quickly. These public services are almost entirely automated and don't require humans to operate them, so why would they go down? Did the zombies attack internet service providers and destroy all of their equipment or something?

[RamblinMike]

They didn't actually lose all of that; they still had electricity and water for a good while. But you'd be surprised how much infrastructure can break down when disaster strikes. Just check out what happened during Katrina. Take out some power and phone lines, have all the workers at the electricity and sewage plants turn zombie, and shit really hits the fan. Kaplooey.

Anyhow, I think KC will eventually explain why the outbreak was so sudden and so widespread. He just hasn't gotten there yet.

[nikvoodoo]

Also want to point out that we didn't see examples of many of the things you listed trying to be used. No one tried to hop online, or make a phone call a few hours after the outbreak. We know that TV stations had enough time to mobilize to broadcast live shots of the beginning of the outbreak. And that can take anywhere from 15 minutes to 60 minutes. Lizzy said when she was DVR searching that an hour after the news report the TV was blank. Michael got a phone call while watching the coverage, so the phones still worked up until then. Beyond that, no one even tried to make a phone call so its hard to say when exactly the phone system went dead.

The Tower folks were very lucky someone stayed at the water works as long as they did. Those people did an amazing service to give survivors a real chance to make it. As for electrical, those systems require constant supervision of the computer systems to keep them running. Without a person, the grid would fail pretty quickly. And even if there was a person at the power grid supervising it, all it would take would be a few transformers to blow before the entire system would fail. But the water and electricity stayed up for an unknown amount of time. Electric went first but we don't know exactly when. It was still working for at least a week (when the first zombie attack of the tower took place). The water failed sometime after that, but we don't know exactly how long.

All we do know for certain is that before the Fourth of July all the utilities were gone. So in less than two months, nothing.

[TCM Revolver]

We really don't know about the radio. The first instance I can remember of them trying to get on the radio is when Saul, Burt and Lizzy went out looking for the tanker. that had to be a couple weeks after the outbreak. As far as the phone/cable and inet, It's all reliant on commercial power. i.e. if the main transmitting station (headend) losses power than the entire plant goes down. or just one of the "nodes" loses power than it can affect the entire area, even if YOU still have power, you may be w/o everything else. That happens in real life now, but what we do is take a generator to the point of power loss and physically insert power into the system. No offense, but if there is a zombie outbreak and one of the nodes loses power, I won't be the one out there with a generator. :p

[fraggot]

Yeah people tend to assume too many things, even when there is no mention of them at all.

The internet and things could have very well been working just fine for maybe a couple of days but once all hell breaks loose, you never know. Zombies could have gotten into buildings where servers were housed and destroyed a lot of the infrastructure that the internet is based on. A lot of these things would just be too much detail to go into, so you're left with vague details in certain places.

[Destiny]

The web would probably be the greatest tool for survival, other than a gun. Go on Facebook or a forum or something and be like "is anyone else alive out there?" and then hook up with other survivors. Plus if you had a lot of survivors you could run your own forum and that way people can post suggestions for the community of survivors and other people can share information on how to survive and about the zombies, how to stop them, and everything else.

[Beaumont]

They didn't actually lose all of that; they still had electricity and water for a good while. But you'd be surprised how much infrastructure can break down when disaster strikes. Just check out what happened during Katrina. Take out some power and phone lines, have all the workers at the electricity and sewage plants turn zombie, and shit really hits the fan. Kaplooey.

Anyhow, I think KC will eventually explain why the outbreak was so sudden and so widespread. He just hasn't gotten there yet.

Very true and we have no clue what actually happened it could be some sort of strategic attack that took all these things in to account before hand and planned to take out communications and utilities. I know they've said they have the ending planned out but is there any indication how many seasons they have planned on?

[nikvoodoo]

Very true and we have no clue what actually happened it could be some sort of strategic attack that took all these things in to account before hand and planned to take out communications and utilities. I know they've said they have the ending planned out but is there any indication how many seasons they have planned on?

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure I've seen somewhere that four seasons are currently planned.

[Pandora]

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure I've seen somewhere that four seasons are currently planned.
Yeah KC just replied to a post on FB that 4 seasons were planned. Yah!

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

Here's a great article on the North American Power grid and Rapid Zombification. I tripping that this guy actually answered the question.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2165/when-the-zombies-take-over-how-long-till-the-electricity-fails

From what I can see, most of the LA area is run via coal and one Hydro plant.

He says power would last about 12-18 hours without a good number of non infected folk.

[VeritableHero]

Maybe they had Time Warner Cable internet. It probably was already out. :)

[Kc]

Here's a great article on the North American Power grid and Rapid Zombification. I tripping that this guy actually answered the question.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2165/when-the-zombies-take-over-how-long-till-the-electricity-fails

From what I can see, most of the LA area is run via coal and one Hydro plant.

He says power would last about 12-18 hours without a good number of non infected folk.

We're mostly coal, at least from all my research. Northern California might be different, but hydro's about 15% in total.
12-18 hours is a good estimate of time. Sometimes more, sometimes less. In the case of our survivors, more.

The internet would be stable and unstable depending on where you are when systems start to go offline. Obviously by the time power ran out, it was all done, but in the short time the pieces were failing there could have been certain lines of communication that were still somewhat operational. You can bet people were still trying to use their phones/internet services after everything went down. We didn't focus on it as much since the first Chapter, when Saul and Angel were trying to use their phones and they weren't working. As for other forms of communication, I'll leave that open for discussion.

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

KC,
That's cool man. Thanks for the get back.
I know that Land lines would run longer and people would be able to go old school dial up after the towers stopped working. My jaded Midwestern mind would assume that a good majority of urbanites wouldn't even blink at a "riot" in LA, not at first. So, until they started hearing stories of people being turned into 5 course meals, they wouldn't touch google or DVR.

[Kc]

KC,
That's cool man. Thanks for the get back.
I know that Land lines would run longer and people would be able to go old school dial up after the towers stopped working. My jaded Midwestern mind would assume that a good majority of urbanites wouldn't even blink at a "riot" in LA, not at first. So, until they started hearing stories of people being turned into 5 course meals, they wouldn't touch google or DVR.

The only experience I can draw from is when trying to deal with some of the equipment in the military. If one piece of the communication power piece is missing, then the whole thing seems to fail.Even at the university I work at. One hub goes down and poof- There's so many variables that no one will know for sure............. until it happens.

[Wicked Sid]

The only experience I can draw from is when trying to deal with some of the equipment in the military. If one piece of the communication power piece is missing, then the whole thing seems to fail.Even at the university I work at. One hub goes down and poof- There's so many variables that no one will know for sure............. until it happens.

[/PARANOIA]
Now, don't be putting your technical voodoo upon this world, Wayland. I've finally figured it out, you've created this podcast to gain the knowledge of all the best zombie survival strategies humanity can think of, then you'll systematically shut down the power grid and unleash your zombie hordes upon us all, directing them into our safehouses and cause the downfall of us all...

Its almost too easy...

P.S. It was the last sentence that gave you away.
[/PARANOIA]

[Teethingbiscuit]

Got to finish my internet download. You know, all of it.. Seriously though wouldn't it be nice to download some databases for such an event. Info such as WebMD would be a plus, though it will undoubtedly be light when it comes to hands-on re breaking a bone to cast it.
What Website/s would you like access for information? Information will be the currency of that future. But with SMARTIES stay away from the Library! I am thinking it could be useful to carry a external hard drive. 1TB up to 3TB is still portable. I looked and Wikipedia decompresses to over 5TB.
Teeth

[Kc]

This is an honest recommendation, download survival guides. How to purify water, water storage, etc.. etc.. Local storage can be accessed with a generator. The internet would be gone...

[Pteranodon]

Screw the internet; there's gotta be an old-school Ham radio operator somewhere who survived in his Cold-War fallout shelter. Those radio signals can reach around the world sometimes; it should have been a priority of the Tower gang to try and contact other survivors via emergency radio at least.

Cory Doctorow wrote a story "When Sysadmins Ruled The Earth" where system administrators are the only survivors of the apocalypse and they keep what's left of the Internet going....

[Teethingbiscuit]

This is an honest recommendation, download survival guides. How to purify water, water storage, etc.. etc.. Local storage can be accessed with a generator. The internet would be gone...
Survival guides? The Kindle is looking better and better. 2,000 books and a battery that lasts.

If I have 18 hrs I'll be maxing out my wife's credit card on how to books for the kindle. (shaking head)
Someone should contact Amazon and make sure they have an apocalyptic plan where they just give survival books away! (Laughing to myself)
Teething

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

LOL.. Batteries that last? Last as long as a book? Tech is gonna fail. The environment will get to rugged for tech to last any longer than a couple months. Something solar powered would last a bit longer, but small electronics are frail. You'll be running, falling, jumping.. your kindle could get water damage from all the crying you'll do because all hope is lost. ROFL.
Going into any survival type store... er, military surplus store and load up. There will be survival guides galore. You don't have to get into a libray, Not right away. Besides, who remembers how to use the Dewey Decimal System anyway? ahahah.
Oh yah, Teeth.. Amazon does have such a thing. Search for Listmania. People have already compiled ooogles of things to use for a Zombie take over. All you have to do is pick and choose from which items you think are groovey.
KC,
you know that anything we use in the military is made by the lowest bidder anyway. Heck, I haven't been able to do any work for 2 days because half the system is down. Like the author said in the site. The best thing to do is just load up on generators and a couple tankers full of petro.

[Teethingbiscuit]

The best thing to do is just load up on generators and a couple tankers full of petro.

You might try bar but you can't eat petro. Even petro spoils. Get a diesel. it has a shelf life. Your precious surplus has already been ransacked just ask Bert.
I might see a problem with listmainia. Who is going to deliver any of it. Bits over atoms. More true now then ever.
Teeth

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

Petro is gas and I've never heard of gas spoiling... that doesn't mean it can't.. i've only heard of it evaporating. The list... LOL.. is for now, not when. It was an FYI to help with the thread.
Also, that suggestion came from the expert in the link I supplied.

[Teethingbiscuit]

Put putter bang lowpower. That'll attract em quick and make for a poor getaway. 6 months in a gas can or abandoned car reservoir and it sours, of course as loud as a diesel and you may not win anyway. Trick with diesel is it can adapt to cooking oil or like we have here in our little field crude oil.
Yeah, I saw your post on the listmania. Haven't figured out how to complete your request yet. I missed your link so please post again.
Teeth

[SleepyGlenn]

Have all the workers at the sewage plants turn zombie, and shit really hits the fan.

Literally!



Anyhow, I think KC will eventually explain why the outbreak was so sudden and so widespread. He just hasn't gotten there yet.

I think so. There must be a reason that news broadcast cut out so abruptly.

[HaveCrowBarWillTravel]

Teeth,
Just look at the first couple posts and the link is there. You'll also see KC's contribution to the thread.